books, productivity & more

Ways To Replenish Your Creative Energy

I am totally writing this post after just tweeting about feeling uninspired…which then inspired me to write this post. If that doesn’t show you that inspiration can come from anywhere and anything, I don’t know what will. However today I want to talk about replenishing our creative energy and just keeping ourselves inspired. Whether you’re a creative type or not, we are all taking energy from ourselves and putting out into the world it may not always be a lot. Over time though it weighs on us and I think, for me anyway, that’s when I’m likely to burn out. When I give out too much and I’m not consuming content at the same rate as I’m producing content.

As a writer, blogger and overall creative soul I am more often than not doing something that requires me to be creative. Writing blog posts also counts loves, so if you’re a blogger than you’re also using your creative energy, which is why you can also experience burn out. Recently I’ve noticed that because I’m not consuming much content in any format really, I’m getting burned out a lot quicker which means I turn to YouTube or other things to occupy my time.

I do have another post coming up soon, where I talk about reflecting on my goal of wanting to wake up at 4am, and re-evaluating my reasons why. In short, this is one of the reasons, I’d like some extra hours in my day to consume more content from people. Not just bookish people and not just blogs. Whilst I will always love blog hopping and interacting with other book bloggers is by far, one of my favourite ways to replenish my creative juices, I also need other content too.

Now consuming content isn’t the only way I restore my creative energy, sometimes I journal or just go for walks, it all depends on what I feel like I need at the time. If I’m being honest there are times when I do not feel like consuming content at all and that’s totally ok! We don’t need to be consuming content 24/7.

YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogs

The main ways to replenish and help spark new ideas is simply by engaging with other people’s content. Some of my blog post ideas were inspired by a small word/phrase from another post, in some cases I wanted to do my own take on the topic. In each case I link back to where my inspiration came from because credit doesn’t take much loves.

With instagram I sometimes mindlessly scroll through the search section and see what pops up, I do plan to integrate myself into the bookstagram more…somehow. Look instagram and I have a bit of a rocky relationship and that’s ok haha. Pinterest is great for stumbling across images, words and other content too. YouTube is another main source of mine, whether I’m watching lifestyle videos or reading vlogs, they all help inspire me. The key is figuring out ways to replenish your own energy, so for me I don’t use Pinterest all that much. I spend more time on blogs and YouTube to gather inspiration and find ideas.

Books, TV, Movies

You’d think would be obvious as I’m a book blogger but as I don’t post reviews on my blog, it’s not technically something I need to be doing to keep content flowing. However reading does help a lot with my writing, it also helps with my blog too as sometimes a book can cause me to think about a topic, which I’ll turn into a discussion post. For example after I’d read It Only Happens In The Movies by Holly Bourne and It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover, those books would spark a discussion postDo Books Give False Expectations For Relationships?that I wouldn’t yet write until early 2019.

Reading is a great source of inspiration and it’s also a way to unwind I type this whilst I’m reading This Cruel Design and I am stressed for these precious characters ok STRESSED!

Another way is consuming movies, TV shows or watching something from your preferred subscription service like Netflix, Hulu etc. Whilst I’m not the biggest fan of movies, I do love a good tv series and watching it is a lovely way to relax whilst also letting your brain consume stories in a more visual form than books. (unless you read graphic novels/manga then you may already be consuming books in a more visual form)

RWBY has been one of my favourite shows to watch and I also need to finish watching Fairy Tail. Other shows I love are NCIS LA, Heartland and Meteor Garden the 2018 reboot…omg 2018 was 2 years ago excuse me whilst I sob

Self Care

I’ve only recently (since 2019) gotten into self care and I’m still awful at it, looking after myself and all that jazz is the first thing to go flying out the window. I do try and I am getting better but self care is a way to help us recharge our batteries so to speak. Not just for creative energy in all areas I feel self care can really help us out, I know when I use face scrubs and actually spend time doing things for myself I’m usually in a really good mood at the end of the day.

Particularly since so many of us live our lives connected to some form of tech, we often forget to take care of ourselves. I will say that your self care doesn’t have to be a physical thing like pampering yourself, it could be watching some videos you’ve been wanting to, having that food you want to or something else!

One of my favourite things to do as self care is watching other people’s self care routines on YouTube as well as morning and night routines hehe. Not only is it a way for me to unwind but the content helps inspire me for my own routines etc.

There’s my thoughts on how to replenish your creative energy, I hope this helps give you ideas on how to recharge your batteries. With that being said, how do you recharge your creative batteries? Lemme know in the comments!

9 thoughts on “Ways To Replenish Your Creative Energy”

Great post! I am definitely struggling with my creative energy right now 😂 I agree with all of these tips! I sometimes try to read books just as a relaxing break from school and blogging, without the intention of writing a review or anything. I don’t really like posting reviews on my blog anymore, just because they’re all so similar and I usually give books 4 stars anyway! I also get inspiration for discussions from Twitter, whenever I ask a question to other bloggers, or when I see other people’s questions, although I haven’t posted a lot of those potential discussion posts yet 🙂

Being creative is such a rewarding outlet but the resource can definitely get tapped out – and fast if you end up spending a lot of time focusing on the creation of things.

I tend to put things on temporary pause and either try and do something that involves my body like going for a walk or anything that doesn’t involve my mind – watching tv or playing sims usually!

The temporary pause can last days or sometimes even weeks depending on how tapped out I am but I usually find that I start getting desperate to kick start my creativity again which is a wonderful outcome of taking a break!